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Despite frequent claims to the contrary, I’ve
come to believe that people love the unknown. Why else in every horror movie do
people go into the big scary house or the rooms from where creepy noises emanate?
They can’t help it.

I grew up watching the The Jetsons, a futuristic television cartoon created by Hanna and Barbara in the early 1960s. As George Jetson and his family traveled around in flying vehicles while living and working in buildings that seemed to float in the sky, it was easy to think that anything representing a total paradigm shift from current life had to be light years into the future.

However, I recently attended the
Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The
largest air show in the country, AirVenture was loaded with state-of-the-art
military and civilian aircraft and even modern, private sector rockets such as
Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin. But it was the smaller, more experimental aircraft
that fascinated me. Despite my Air Force years on fighters (F-111s to be
specific - now appearing in museums), I found myself repeatedly drawn to these
very personal flying machines the entire week I was there. The o…

Decades ago my dad, always the jokester, would tell this
"multipart" joke. The genius of his approach was in how it was
told––as two separate jokes, delivered back-to-back, each totally dependent
upon the other. No one ever saw the connection until the end (often after it
was revealed), which is what always made it funny. Today, when I speak about creativity, I frequently begin the
presentation by telling a version of his joke to help illustrate a point. It
goes something like this: A little girl is skipping down the
street when she comes upon three colored bricks lying on the road: one red, one
yellow, and one blue. She pauses, reaches down for the red one, thinks for a
moment, and heaves it into the air. The brick hits the ground hard and breaks
into pieces. After laughing a bit, she reaches down for the yellow one and
heaves it higher into the air. The brick hits the ground with a greater force
and shatters. Laughing a…

I recently saw the movie "Deepwater Horizon." Since the movie is
based on actual events, I’m not spoiling anything by describing how it
chronicles the 2010 oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that caused
the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters. What struck me the most was
how I could actually feel the gradual, yet massive buildup of pressure
ultimately released from the ocean floor more than two and a half miles
below the surface—pressure that literally blew apart the entire
structure.

It got me thinking about how pressure can also affect our everyday
lives. Except in a few scientific and engineering contexts, intense
pressure is seldom a good thing. However, people often think they
actually perform better under pressure, despite the research showing
just the opposite: No one performs better under pressure.

Over the years, I’ve been asked a number of times how to creatively
develop and maintain a competitive advantage in an environment marked by
rapid changes in technology, fluid delivery systems, intense
competition, real-time communication and instant (and often brutal)
customer “experience” reports through social media.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear about someone bemoaning a poor
customer service experience. In fact, I believe customer service has
gotten so bad that some people generally seem to expect a bad
experience. As a result, I believe we have lowered our bar to the point
where we now just tolerate being treated poorly.

Although I do think it’s becoming more difficult to maintain an advantage, I believe there is a solution … perhaps even the
solution. Here’s the “secret” competitive advantage solution,
especially if you’re trying to build a…